Status: in progress. Client: Unita. Location: Brunswick Street, New Farm QLD, an old single storey corner shop being rebuilt inside its original walls. Scope: strip out, commercial demolition and excavation, working around temporary and needle propping that holds the building up while walls come out.
Unita, the Brisbane fitout and construction builder, engaged Perfect Strip Out and Demolition for the strip out, demolition and excavation side of the job. Our Queensland crew started on site in the first week of September 2026. The shop has an old mosaic floor that had to stay, masonry walls that are being opened up under needles, and a rear courtyard with cool rooms that had to go.
What the commercial demolition in New Farm involves
- Soft strip and internal demolition of the old tenancy back to its walls and roof framing
- Saw cutting the concrete slab and breaking it out with a hammer on a 1.7 tonne excavator, with the rubble loaded out by mini dumper and tipper
- Removing the front shopfront windows and framing to Brunswick Street
- Detailed excavation inside the building: benching down and digging out a lower level under temporary props
- Core drilling needle pockets through the masonry and installing needle propping on lines of adjustable props so the walls above stay up
- Demolishing masonry walls under the needles once the engineer has signed off the propping
- Demolishing and removing the old cool rooms in the rear courtyard, and stripping the lightweight cladding to the laneway
- Protecting the old mosaic floor that stays in the finished shop
What makes it hard
The building is being held up while its walls come out. Temporary props carry the roof, and the masonry walls sit on steel needle beams passed through cored pockets. Nothing comes down until the propping is in, checked and signed off by the engineer, and every cut is planned so the load stays where the props expect it.
It is a busy strip. The shop fronts Brunswick Street, with a footpath, bus stop and neighbouring shops trading next door, and the only other way in is a rear laneway and loading dock. Deliveries of props, loadout trucks and the crew all share that access.
Some of it has to stay. The old mosaic floor is being kept, so it is covered and worked around. The cool rooms still had live water and gas to part of them when we got to them, so they came out in stages once the services were confirmed off.
How it is being done
The tenancy was stripped first, then the slab was saw cut on clean lines and broken out with the excavator hammer. Temporary props went in under the roof before any digging started, and the lower level was benched down with the 1.7 tonne excavator and a mini dumper, loading out through the laneway in small tippers.
For the walls, the crew core drilled needle pockets through the masonry, fed the needle beams through and set them on props. Once the engineer signed off, the wall below was cut free and taken down with the excavator and hammer, and the brick and concrete were loaded out and sent for recycling. The cool rooms and laneway cladding were stripped back in the same way, piece by piece.
The propping design
The needle propping was designed and signed off by the engineer before any wall came down. The drawings below show the arrangement: a 3.7 metre needled span through the masonry, with the needle beam carried on a line of adjustable steel props 2.75 metres high, and the wall below it opened up in stages.
Where the job is at
As at late September 2026: the strip out, slab break out and front window removal are done, the lower level is dug out, the first masonry wall is down under its needles, and the cool rooms are out of the courtyard. The rear needled wall is being opened up now, with the job booked through to early October 2026. This page will be updated when the job is finished.
What the client said
Just wanted to say a huge thank you to the whole Perfect team. This has been a tough start to a project but you guys are killing it. Jumping in to assist wherever needed at short notice without a fuss. Tim is amazing, such a wealth of knowledge, genuinely appreciate the assistance he is giving JC on site.
Marc Vipond, Senior Project Manager, Unita
Lessons learned on this job
Every job teaches the crew something. These are the ones we are taking from New Farm so far.
What worked
- Getting the propping in, checked and signed off before any wall work started, so nobody was waiting on the engineer halfway through a cut
- Saw cutting the slab before breaking it, so the edges we kept stayed clean and the old mosaic floor was not disturbed
- A 1.7 tonne excavator and a mini dumper inside the shop, small enough to work between the props and still move the volume
What was difficult
- One shared rear laneway for props coming in and waste going out
- Working in a building held up on props, where every cut had to follow the propping plan
- Cool rooms with live services to part of them, which had to be confirmed off before they could come out
If you have something similar
Builders and fitout contractors reworking an old shop or commercial building in Brisbane, where walls come out under propping and the ground inside gets dug down, need one crew that does the strip out, demolition, propping and excavation together. Have a look at our commercial strip out Brisbane, structural propping and detailed excavation pages, see a similar heritage shopfront job at Crown Street, Surry Hills, or get in touch.
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Perfect Stripout & Demolition acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Traditional Custodians of the country on which we live and work. We pay our respects to the Traditional Custodians and Elders past, present and future, and honour their connection to the land and ongoing contribution to society.